With most California governments and police agencies resisting President Donald Trump’s push to increase immigration enforcement and deportations, Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens is bucking the trend, telling the Trump administration she wants her department to cooperate more closely with federal immigration agents. (File photo by Nick Koon, Orange County Register/SCNG)

With most California governments and police agencies resisting President Donald Trump’s push to increase immigration enforcement and deportations, Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens is bucking the trend, telling the Trump administration she wants her department to cooperate more closely with federal immigration agents.

Last month, Hutchens met with several high ranking members of Trump’s administration in Washington D.C., in part to communicate how her department, and possibly law enforcement in other large American counties, would be willing to impose federal immigration laws.

Her message: Neighborhood enforcement is off the table, but an enhanced immigration role in jails would be welcome.

Specifically, Hutchens — who was in D.C. in her role as president of the Major Counties Sheriff’s Association — said she asked the administration to provide a legal directive for her to detain some immigrants convicted of violent or other serious crimes beyond their set release dates so federal agents could retrieve and deport them.

That practice is prohibited under California law and federal courts have found it to be in violation of the Fourth Amendment. It’s unclear if any directive from the executive branch could stand up in court. Hutchens believes fewer criminals will be released to the streets of Orange County if her deputies are allowed to work more closely with ICE agents.

Hutchens’ meetings with administration officials came came two weeks after Trump signed a Jan. 25 executive order directing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to develop stronger partnerships with police and sheriff’s departments and to punish municipalities that don’t cooperate with the agency.

It also came as the Orange County Sheriff’s Dept., along with the Orange County District Attorney, is being investigated by the U.S. Dept. of Justice’s Civil Rights division.

During her time in D.C., Hutchens met briefly with Trump and held longer conversations with U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Acting Director of ICE Thomas Homan, and Homeland Security Secretary Gen. John Kelly.

Hutchens’ desire to have Orange County deputies play a stronger role in immigration work isn’t new. Hutchens unsuccessfully petitioned President Barack Obama’s administration for similar legal protections to allow her department to honor ICE detainers. She believes holding some immigrants beyond their scheduled release dates in county jail could keep criminals from being released to local neighborhoods.

But Trump has expanded the scope of immigrants targeted for deportation. And Hutchens said Sessions seemed “willing to listen to that, and find a fix” that would create rules that would allow her department to hold people legally under ICE detainers.

Locally, at least, Hutchens is an outlier. Many law enforcement agencies in California, including the Los Angeles Police Department, have announced plans to not allow ICE to use their officers and jails to to supplement federal immigration enforcement. Legislators in cities and counties in California, including Santa Ana, among others, have said they want the state to obstruct or reduce cooperation with ICE.

Hutchens put limits on her willingness to collaborate with ICE, telling Homan and Kelly that it is not the job of sheriff’s deputies to enforce immigration law in neighborhoods and that deputies would not begin stopping or arresting people based on their immigration status. She said the two men didn’t dispute her assertion and “didn’t seem surprised that we would say that.”

But during a phone call with Sessions, Hutchens asked for the administration to find a way for counties to honor ICE detainers even though courts have ruled it is unconstitutional. Orange County currently notifies ICE when undocumented immigrants convicted of violent or serious crimes are scheduled for release. But nearly 10 percent of the time, the agency fails to show up when those inmates are let out, Hutchens said.

“If they get released prior to ICE trying to pick them up, the next thing ICE is going to do is search for that person in the community, where they’re going to go out and serve a search warrant – and that’s dangerous for the community and ICE officers,” Hutchens said, explaining why she likes the ICE detainers.

Orange County already has a closer relationship with ICE than any county in California. The Orange County Sheriff’s Dept. is the only one in the state to have a deal that allows sheriff’s deputies to act legally as ICE agents in some circumstances, an arrangement known as a 287(g) agreement.

The interagency partnership is limited to the county’s jails, where deputies are allowed to question people they suspect might be undocumented immigrants in order to determine their legal status. That information, supplied to ICE, helps the agency identify people who aren’t in federal databases, allowing those individuals to be targeted for deportation. The agreement also requires deputies to share arrest data, documents and supporting evidence if ICE asks for it.

Critics suggest Hutchens is asking the Trump administration to circumvent the courts.

Jennie Pasquarella, director of immigrant rights at the ACLU California, said the Trump administration can’t legally accommodate Hutchens’ request for an ICE detainer. What’s more, she said such an order — if local deputies acted on it — might leave the county vulnerable to a potentially expensive civil lawsuit.

Pasquarella pointed out that deputies holding immigrants solely at the request of federal agents would violate both California’s Trust Act, which specifically outlaws the practice, and the constitution, which holds that people can’t be imprisoned without due process.

Courts recently have agreed. In 2014, a federal judge in Oregon ruled that ICE’s detainers violate inmates’ civil rights and that it was illegal for local jails to honor ICE detainers. Since then, those extended holds have largely ceased nationwide.

Pasquarella also believes the detainers might only have legal weight if they were issued for federal immigration crimes, not civil violations – but that would only affect a relatively small group of people who have been deported and re-entered the U.S.

“It sounds like a request for a vague way to hold people,” Pasquarella said. “And really the devil is in the details of whatever proposal the Trump administration would come up with to allow them to hold someone legally.”

When Hutchens was asked what legal mechanism would allow her to hold undocumented immigrants beyond their release date, she said that was a question for the federal government to answer. Orange County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Lt. Mark Stichter later said Hutchens wouldn’t hold anyone on an ICE detainer if doing so were “in violation of any law.”

Stichter said the Sheriff’s Dept. has never “held anyone past their release date, before or after the Trust Act was established.”

Salvador Sarmiento, a campaign coordinator for the National Day Laborers Organizing Network, criticized Hutchens for wanting in any way to work more closely with ICE.

“She has been the regressive figure in law enforcement in California,” Sarmiento said. “While the whole state is moving forward, this sheriff is digging her heels into the ground.”

But Deborah Pauly, an elected member of the Republican Party of Orange County Central Committee, said she supported Hutchens’ request and questioned whether undocumented immigrants have Fourth Amendment rights.

“I think what she’s talking about is a step in the right direction and I would take it even further, ” Pauly said. “Those who are in this country illegally have already broken the law, and I really question whether they have constitutional protections because the constitution is for Americans.”

The Department of Justice did not respond to requests for comment about Hutchens’ conversation with Session or her statement that Sessions said he would seek a “fix” to the legal questions over ICE detainers.

Jordan Graham covers congressional politics and county government for the Orange County Register. He began his career reporting freelance civic and watchdog journalism in his hometown of Chicago before moving westward in 2013. He has previously covered Irvine, the San Fernando Valley and Costa Mesa for the Register. He is a graduate of University of Illinois and Northwestern University. Please email or call him with news tips.

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